Stealing Npc Ships

[Skwidz]

How do I steal an npc ship such as a cargo ship (including destroying the faction block) without them declaring war on me? I managed to get aboard an outcast salvage ship and dock it to the canon I tore from a cathedral station, but I can't destroy the faction module(s) without some trouble.

P.S. Why is the speed in m/s while the distance is in kilometers?

 

[ZombieMouse]

I feel a bit dirty saying this, but...

Logic controlled beam weapon on a factionless entity, target their faction block. Don't be on the ship when you activate the logic to fire the weapon.

Or warheads.

I totally have never done that and do not endorse this behaviour.

 

[Skwidz]

Hehehe

 

[Lord_Greyscale]

... I'd completely forgotten about unfactioned logic weapons. (I habitually put a factiom module on everything I build, so it just slipped my mind)

Warheads are often slow (default settings don't do much damage), and equally often absurdly damaging to everything around the faction module. (modded settings, to make warheads a viable weapon)

Both are good options. Simple options. I approve.


Or, you can abuse Homebasing and force-docking such that it won't matter that the NPCs declare war.
(takes longer than the unfactioned logic weapon though, and warheads are finicky)

Simply, build a ludicrously over-engined ship, and set up the docker so it forces other ships to dock to it. (none of the NPCs that have docks have faction lockouts)

Then, match speeds with, and force the docking of your target. (this is the hardest part, server lag will screw you rather often)

Once it is docked, return to homebase. (preferably via Jump, but Warpgate or simple slow-boating will work too.)

Then, you dock to your base. (this makes the catcher ship, and the target it caught, become invincible to everything but warheads and torches, which NPCs don't use)

Then, use your torch and burn out the faction module.

Being homebase invincible, you can either simply wait a bit and ask for peace (the further your base from theirs, the easier this is, as the "punishment fleet" takes time to travel), or equip/build some good turrets and start a roight-proppa scrapyard operation.


Heck, you can even have the Homebase abuse force-docking, to force the captured ship to dock to your base, so you can go out and catch another one. (and potentially spark off a lovely war between the NPCs, when their fleets show up and missiles start hitting everything)

 

[StormWing0]

If the devs haven't fixed it yet you could make use of a public dock on a small ship and go hunting for the rail docker.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

I feel a bit dirty saying this, but...

Logic controlled beam weapon on a factionless entity, target their faction block. Don't be on the ship when you activate the logic to fire the weapon.

Or warheads.

I totally have never done that and do not endorse this behaviour.

Yeah, I've used a similar method since NPC ships came out. Hijacking NPC ships is rather easy and handy. They provide a lot of nice blocks.
[doublepost=1498016738,1498016589][/doublepost]

Simply, build a ludicrously over-engined ship, and set up the docker so it forces other ships to dock to it. (none of the NPCs that have docks have faction lockouts)

Then, match speeds with, and force the docking of your target. (this is the hardest part, server lag will screw you rather often)

This is also a part of my routine.
[doublepost=1498016887][/doublepost]

Heck, you can even have the Homebase abuse force-docking, to force the captured ship to dock to your base, so you can go out and catch another one. (and potentially spark off a lovely war between the NPCs, when their fleets show up and missiles start hitting everything)

That will work while you're on the server, but soon as you leave the NPC unloads.
I've tried many hijacking techniques with NPC's.
[doublepost=1498017134][/doublepost]On one of the servers I play, most of my home base and parts of ships are made using captured NPC ships. Mostly from battle damage, but initially from hijacking to quick start my building.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

I think you had never tried to dock that over a shipyard, then press the "get blocks from that docked ship" button and see the profit, less problems or lag than you did.

Oh yeah! This is great for reusing the design for your own purpose also. I just use my shipyard the break down the ships for the blocks. If you want the BPs for any of the NPC factions you can pull these from your own install and copy/paste them into your blueprints folder. To spawn them in single player you need to use Admin, but then you can enter the core and save it again as whatever you want to then use server side.

 

[Napther]

Being homebase invincible, you can either simply wait a bit and ask for peace (the further your base from theirs, the easier this is, as the "punishment fleet" takes time to travel), or equip/build some good turrets and start a roight-proppa scrapyard operation.

Actually, ANYTHING docked to a homebase that is not the same faction as the homebase does not gain homebase immunity. This is to stop Public Docker Alt-Faction-Homebases to house fleets of another faction for free and with complete security away from their actual HB.

 

[Lord_Greyscale]

Actually, ANYTHING docked to a homebase that is not the same faction as the homebase does not gain homebase immunity. This is to stop Public Docker Alt-Faction-Homebases to house fleets of another faction for free and with complete security away from their actual HB.

That's something very new then, as that wasn't the case when I last did that.
Thank you for letting me know.

I think you had never tried to dock that over a shipyard, then press the "get blocks from that docked ship" button and see the profit, less problems or lag than you did.

Actually, I did, in fact, do that. After I cut out the faction module, because at the time a wrong-factioned ship couldn't be docked to the shipyard anchor of a homebase. (infinite spew of "overlaps with shipyard" because the public permission block only worked by directly touching the block. yes, I even tried it on the shipyard computer, no dice)

You still have to get the ship, and get it to the yard, and at least I had fun with the method I had used.

And then came the interesting part: I had to de-construct it anyway, because at the time, "recovered" ships that had been in an NPC fleet, remained in the NPC fleet. (and so, couldn't be added to any of your fleets.)

I promptly re-constructed it, because I wasn't after the blocks. I wanted to build a carrier, based on the trade-guild freighter. I did build a carrier based on the trade guild freighter, and learned newer things along the way. (like what older techniques had been broken recently)

 

[Napther]

That's something very new then, as that wasn't the case when I last did that.
Thank you for letting me know.

yeah, you can test in single player using /faction_set_entity -1 or -2 on a test ship docked to a HB and shooting at it.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Actually, ANYTHING docked to a homebase that is not the same faction as the homebase does not gain homebase immunity. This is to stop Public Docker Alt-Faction-Homebases to house fleets of another faction for free and with complete security away from their actual HB.

Hmmm... I hadn't anticipated this change. ...or did I?

I guess I'll just add that to my list of reasons why most of my station/MCS designs have giant enclosed docking bays.


Edit: Now that I think about it, I've been doing this for a REALLY long time...
Coincidence? Strategic planning? Paranoia? You decide.

 

[Napther]

I guess I'll just add that to my list of reasons why most of my station/MCS designs have giant enclosed docking bays.

I too have a huge bay door thing for keeping ships inside safe, unfortuately it has to be factioned to not be stolen by the station owner...

 

[Dr. Whammy]

I too have a huge bay door thing for keeping ships inside safe, unfortuately it has to be factioned to not be stolen by the station owner...

You know what they say. A good idea is a good idea.

 

[ZombieMouse]

Cool as enclosed hangers look, don't they create lag - especially if housing larger ships?

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Cool as enclosed hangers look, don't they create lag - especially if housing larger ships?

To a degree, yes. But no more than any other home base with large craft docked. The collision check areas (bounding boxes) of ships and stations tend to increase draw on server resources when large objects or craft with a LOT of cores get really close to each other. Once docked, or outside of the boundaries of the collision check areas, the lag usually subsides.

Examples:

- This craft has a 100x automatic torpedo launcher, 21 PD turrets and a missile turret. This led to a total of 145 cores in a very compact space. On LvD, This ship caused massive server-wide issues simply from existing... It is now considered banned technology within the United Star Axis and I've since decommissioned it.

- On LvD This version of my Mobile Command System caused lag whenever a ship docked, undocked or got to close due to it being a composite structure with 42 turrets; a total of 86 cores. It didn't help that I had a bunch of frigates and miners docked; each with 8-10 PD turrets installed.

 

[Gasboy]

P.S. Why is the speed in m/s while the distance is in kilometers?

The reason why m/s is used and not km/s is that unless you modify your game or the server has different settings, is that you aren't expect to exceed 999 m/s.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

Examples:

It's a shame you couldn't use these. Would make for some fun battle game play.

So as I understand the number of cores blows out the lag. Interesting.

 

[ZombieMouse]

And even more so the number of cores where the entity collision boxes overlap.

That's why I've started trying to place turrets on the very edge of ship hulls, and using transporter pads instead of physical lifts with rails.

Less entities, less overlap, less lag.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

turrets on the very edge of ship hulls

This is how I use to operate, until I noticed people were embedding huge amounts of shield and power in the turret base either below the ships hull or in a large pocket provided for the turret. So, I've tried it myself and it definitely gives you the edge.
[doublepost=1498178804,1498178712][/doublepost]Sorry Captain Skwidz for the off topic posts.

 

[ZombieMouse]

I can't deny that building for minimum lag and building for best PvP performance might sometimes be mutually exclusive. Unless you like ships that look like shoe boxes.